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France’s top court for administrative law has dismissed Google’s appeal against a $57M fine issued by the data watchdog last year for not making it clear enough to Android users how it processes their personal information. The State Council issued the decision today, affirming the data watchdog CNIL’s earlier finding that Google did not provide “sufficiently clear” information to Android users — which in turn meant it had not legally obtained their consent to use their data for targeted ads. “Google’s request has been rejected,” a spokesperson for the Conseil D’Etat confirmed to TechCrunch via email.<<--snip-->>

I’ve notice an interesting post script in articles on wtop.com (DC area news station): “This website is not intended for users within the European Economic Area”. Is this supposed to keep them out of trouble if they post something deemed as “hate speech”? Maybe they’ve been doing it awhile and I just haven’t noticed it before.

Telemetry data slurp broke the law, Dutch govt eggheads sayMicrosoft broke Euro privacy rules by carrying out the "large scale and covert" gathering of private data through its Office apps.That's according to a report out this month [PDF] that was commissioned by the Dutch government into how information handled by 300,000 of its workers was processed by Microsoft's Office ProPlus suite. This software is installed on PCs and connects to Office 365 servers.The dossier's authors found that the Windows goliath was collecting telemetry and other content from its Office applications, including email titles and sentences where translation or spellchecker was...

The head of Apple on Wednesday endorsed tough privacy laws for both Europe and the U.S. and renewed the technology giant’s commitment to protecting personal data, which he warned was being “weaponized” against users. Speaking at an international conference on data privacy, Apple CEO Tim Cook applauded European Union authorities for bringing in a strict new data privacy law in May and said the iPhone maker supports a U.S. federal privacy law . Cook’s speech, along with video comments from Google and Facebook top bosses, in the European Union’s home base in Brussels, underscores how the U.S. tech giants are...

Bad news for Google and other internet advertisers: Brave is pushing to make farming user data a whole lot harder. Founder Brandon Eich wants to bring the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to the doorstep of some of the most powerful companies in the world. “There is a massive and systematic data breach at the heart of the behavioral advertising industry. Despite the two-year lead-in period before the GDPR, adtech companies have failed to comply,” Brave’s chief policy officer Johnny Ryan told Reuters. Eich and Brave are calling out the way that personal data is harvested by various websites...

UK Anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson was arrested on Friday for reporting about muslim rape gangs. He was hauled off, tried, convicted, and imprisoned all within a matter of hours. The UK court has ordered media silence on Tommy's case, and many online articles have been pulled down. According to info from Facebook, Tommy Robinson's lawyer is meeting with Tommy on Tuesday to discuss what next steps can be taken, if any. She was deliberately misled by the police, who on Friday had informed her on the phone that Tommy was being released, and when she asked for confirmation that he...

The American media is finally catching on to this story... Fox reports: U.K. right-wing activist and journalist Tommy Robinson was arrested and reportedly jailed Friday after he filmed members of an alleged child grooming gang entering a court for trial -- but the details of his purported sentence remain murky after the judge ordered the press not to report on the case. Robinson, the former head of the English Defense League and a longtime activist against Islam and Islamic migration, was arrested after he was filming men accused of being part of a gang that groomed children. Britain has been...

First reported by the BBC, news sites owned by media companies like Tronc and Lee Enterprises are now totally dark in European Union countries. Some of those sites include the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, the St. Louis Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel. Gizmodo was able to confirm that the websites were being blocked in Europe by using a VPN service that routed internet traffic through various European countries. Internet users who visit sites like the L.A. Times receive a notification like the one below, explaining: Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most...

www.superoffice.com/blog/gdpr/ Companies tell you that they collect this type of information so that they can serve you better, offer you more targeted and relevant communications, all to provide you with a better customer experience. But, is that what they really use the data for? This is the question that has been asked and answered by the EU, and why in May 2018 a new European privacy regulation called GDPR will be enforced and permanently change the way you collect, store and use customer data. In a study of more than 800 IT and business professionals that are responsible for data...

The European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) becomes fully enforceable on May 25, 2018. According to recent surveys, 60% of companies polled are going to miss the deadline; it's a sobering number considering how severe the fines and penalties could be for companies found to be noncompliant in the aftermath of a security breach. The reality is many businesses still do not understand what compliance with the GDPR really means. With perhaps a few exceptions, every business that collects personal data from customers, clients, and vendors is going to experience a security breach where that data is exposed, comprised,...

European Union, USA March 7 2018 The EU’s General Data Protective Regulation (“GDPR”) has been a popular topic of late. Fisher Phillips’ Employment Privacy Blog has covered the evolution of this regulation, starting with the roll back of the previous “safe harbor” regime, as well as providing updates to GDPR compliance standards, and training recommendations. As if to highlight the seriousness with which the EU is pursuing this directive, the GDPR has even made a recent appearance in Supreme Court arguments on Tuesday. United States v. Microsoft, No. 17-2, raised the issue of whether the United States may issue a...

Companies around the globe are scrambling to comply with new European privacy regulations that take effect a little more than three months from now. But many security experts are worried that the changes being ushered in by the rush to adhere to the law may make it more difficult to track down cybercriminals and less likely that organizations will be willing to share data about new online threats. On May 25, 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes effect. The law, enacted by the European Parliament, requires technology companies to get affirmative consent for any information they collect on...